Crime: Suspects arrested in Delhi gang fight
By Mike De La Cruz
MDELACRUZ@MERCEDSUN-STAR.COM
Last Updated: November 3, 2005, 06:40:52 AM PST
Two men were arrested Wednesday in connection with the shooting and stabbing of two 16-year-old boys in a gang-related fight in Delhi earlier this week.
Reputed Surenos gang members Andres Barajas Diaz, 28, of Delhi, and Ramon Fuentes Jr., 18, of Ceres were taken into custody by Merced County Sheriff's Department SWAT team deputies.
They were assisted by Ceres Police Department SWAT team officers.
Sheriff's spokesman Scott Dover said the deputies armed with arrest and search warrants served the documents at the Delhi and Ceres homes simultaneously around 6 a.m. and took the men into custody without incident.
The arrests were the result of a Monday night fight in front of the Schendel Elementary School in Delhi in which two 16-year-old Norteno gang members were shot and stabbed.
Reports indicate approximately 10 to 15 alleged Norteno and Sureno gang members were involved in the fight that began with insults traded between the two groups and escalated into the stabbings and shooting.
The more seriously injured of the two boys was shot in the head and received a laceration believed to have been inflicted by a knife.
He was taken to an area hospital where he remained in critical but stable condition Wednesday, Dover said.
The second youth was stabbed in the abdomen and taken to a local hospital where he was treated and released.
Detective James Weaver, assigned to the sheriff's Major Crime Unit, said an investigation identified Diaz and Fuentes as possibly being the ones who stabbed and shot the victims.
"It was our intent to serve the warrants while the two suspects were at home asleep to avoid any incidents," Dover said.
Both of the men were booked into Merced County Jail on the warrants charging them with attempted murder. They both remained in custody Wednesday in lieu of $50,000 bail each, Dover said.
He said detectives are continuing the investigation in hopes of identifying the other gang members involved.
Undersheriff Bill Blake was pleased the Major Crimes Unit was able to act so quickly in making the arrests.
"Hopefully it will stop the retaliation from one group to another," he said.
http://www.mercedsun-star.com/local/cri ... 6284c.html
Delhi: gang fight/Nortenos/Southerners
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Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 10:11 pm Post subject: Most Important Rule
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Most Important Rule
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Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 10:11 pm Post subject: Most Important Rule
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Most Important Rule
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Christina Marie
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yo foo
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Boy, 14, charged in gun deaths
Youth will be tried as an adult in 2 San Jose killings
Alan Gathright and Jim Herron Zamora, Chronicle Staff Writers
Friday, January 9, 2004
Just 12 days after turning 14, James Ortega is accused of making a fateful decision that could send him to prison for life.
After a rival gang member flashed the "Sureño" sign, Ortega and two of his Norteño buddies rushed into a San Jose burger joint Saturday night and began a chair-and-table tossing brawl, prosecutors said in court Thursday.
Suddenly, Ortega found himself on the losing end of it, Santa Clara County Prosecutor Stuart Scott said Thursday after a court hearing. "He went toward the door and turned around with a gun from his waistband and started blazing away.''
When the shooting stopped, two 17-year-old boys were dead and a third teen was wounded.
On Thursday, the stocky teen stood in juvenile-hall-issue white T-shirt, brown pants and waist shackles as he was charged as an adult with two counts of gang-motivated murder and two counts of attempted murder. Ortega, who pleaded not guilty along with alleged accomplice Malik Alayube, 18, became the youngest minor in county history to face trial as an adult. A second 14-year- old has also been arrested in the killings, and prosecutors are weighing whether to also seek to have him tried as an adult.
Despite facing double-murder charges, Ortega's case would have remained in juvenile court if the shootings had occurred before his Dec. 22 birthday. At 13, he would have been beyond the reach of Proposition 21 -- an initiative passed by voters in 2000 that lowered the age for adult prosecution of violent criminals from 16 to 14.
The move was in reaction to a nationwide explosion in juvenile crime that started in the early 1990s.
"The intent of Proposition 21 was to ensure the safety of the community, '' Scott said after Thursday's arraignment, by deterring situations where gang members used youngsters to be the actual shooter because juveniles got lighter sentences.
And although such laws, along with a strong economy and prevention programs, had a positive effect, officials are now warning of a fresh upturn in gang crime and youth involvement.
"A lot of these kids are indoctrinated into that gang lifestyle early on, '' he said. "When they're in grade school and other kids are playing soccer, they're acting as lookouts on the corner. They're holding gang weapons, before or after a fight.''
The race, he said, is for police and school officials and social programs and family members to reach kids and offer them healthy alternatives before older gang-bangers get their hooks into them.
Rudy Corpuz, who runs United Playaz, a San Francisco anti-violence program at Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, said that when teens kill teens it is often nothing more than a sense of misplaced pride.
"People kill to get their reputation, to get their stripes, to show everybody they are tough gangstas,'' said Corpuz, who counseled students at Balboa High School after student DeShawn Dawson was shot to death after trying to quell a fight on a Muni bus on Oct. 24.
"These young guys have no fear,'' Corpuz said. "But they have no sense of consequences either. They don't realize the gang lifestyle is going to lead you to your death or life inside a jail cell.''
Torm Nompraseurt, who counsels troubled Southeast Asian teens with the Laotian Organizing Project, said gangs offer youngsters a place to fit in. Often, they're immigrants or second-generation Americans who feel caught between two cultures.
"These young people want to be accepted, so they join gangs and adopt the very worst things about American culture -- drugs, violence, gangs," said Nompraseurt, whose 15-year-old niece was killed Oct. 13 by gunmen who were trying to kill her older brother.
Four young men are awaiting trial in that case. Investigators said the killing of honor student Chan Boonkeut was part of a bloody war between two gangs called the Sons of Death and the Color of Blood that has left 10 people wounded in western Contra Costa County.
"They are really killing each other over nothing,'' Nompraseurt said. "It's foolish.''
Oakland Police homicide Sgt. Jim Rullamas said that while a high percentage of that city's soaring murder rate may involve gang members or their associates, it is not easy to prove that was the motive in court.
"In most of my cases, there are rival groups but the gang affiliation is looser here -- it's not like Crips and Bloods,'' Rullamas said.
Corpuz said that "gang banging is never going to stop -- wars are never going to stop -- but we can save some lives. We can still reach some of these kids before it's too late.''
Santa Clara County prosecutors see Ortega, however, not as a wayward boy but a danger to society who's beyond the salvation of the juvenile justice system.
"The evidence is that Mr. Ortega was the lone gunman who shot and killed two young men and seriously wounded a third,'' Santa Clara County District Attorney George Kennedy said Thursday.
"We looked at all the defendant's background, including his contacts with the juvenile justice system and how amenable he would be to rehabilitation under that system,'' Scott said. "All the information was negative."
At the age of 14, he said, Ortega was "entrenched in the gang lifestyle."
Doobie, none of this shit is funny... The only people losing this war are mexicans as a whole... not the norte or sur BS.
Youth will be tried as an adult in 2 San Jose killings
Alan Gathright and Jim Herron Zamora, Chronicle Staff Writers
Friday, January 9, 2004
Just 12 days after turning 14, James Ortega is accused of making a fateful decision that could send him to prison for life.
After a rival gang member flashed the "Sureño" sign, Ortega and two of his Norteño buddies rushed into a San Jose burger joint Saturday night and began a chair-and-table tossing brawl, prosecutors said in court Thursday.
Suddenly, Ortega found himself on the losing end of it, Santa Clara County Prosecutor Stuart Scott said Thursday after a court hearing. "He went toward the door and turned around with a gun from his waistband and started blazing away.''
When the shooting stopped, two 17-year-old boys were dead and a third teen was wounded.
On Thursday, the stocky teen stood in juvenile-hall-issue white T-shirt, brown pants and waist shackles as he was charged as an adult with two counts of gang-motivated murder and two counts of attempted murder. Ortega, who pleaded not guilty along with alleged accomplice Malik Alayube, 18, became the youngest minor in county history to face trial as an adult. A second 14-year- old has also been arrested in the killings, and prosecutors are weighing whether to also seek to have him tried as an adult.
Despite facing double-murder charges, Ortega's case would have remained in juvenile court if the shootings had occurred before his Dec. 22 birthday. At 13, he would have been beyond the reach of Proposition 21 -- an initiative passed by voters in 2000 that lowered the age for adult prosecution of violent criminals from 16 to 14.
The move was in reaction to a nationwide explosion in juvenile crime that started in the early 1990s.
"The intent of Proposition 21 was to ensure the safety of the community, '' Scott said after Thursday's arraignment, by deterring situations where gang members used youngsters to be the actual shooter because juveniles got lighter sentences.
And although such laws, along with a strong economy and prevention programs, had a positive effect, officials are now warning of a fresh upturn in gang crime and youth involvement.
"A lot of these kids are indoctrinated into that gang lifestyle early on, '' he said. "When they're in grade school and other kids are playing soccer, they're acting as lookouts on the corner. They're holding gang weapons, before or after a fight.''
The race, he said, is for police and school officials and social programs and family members to reach kids and offer them healthy alternatives before older gang-bangers get their hooks into them.
Rudy Corpuz, who runs United Playaz, a San Francisco anti-violence program at Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, said that when teens kill teens it is often nothing more than a sense of misplaced pride.
"People kill to get their reputation, to get their stripes, to show everybody they are tough gangstas,'' said Corpuz, who counseled students at Balboa High School after student DeShawn Dawson was shot to death after trying to quell a fight on a Muni bus on Oct. 24.
"These young guys have no fear,'' Corpuz said. "But they have no sense of consequences either. They don't realize the gang lifestyle is going to lead you to your death or life inside a jail cell.''
Torm Nompraseurt, who counsels troubled Southeast Asian teens with the Laotian Organizing Project, said gangs offer youngsters a place to fit in. Often, they're immigrants or second-generation Americans who feel caught between two cultures.
"These young people want to be accepted, so they join gangs and adopt the very worst things about American culture -- drugs, violence, gangs," said Nompraseurt, whose 15-year-old niece was killed Oct. 13 by gunmen who were trying to kill her older brother.
Four young men are awaiting trial in that case. Investigators said the killing of honor student Chan Boonkeut was part of a bloody war between two gangs called the Sons of Death and the Color of Blood that has left 10 people wounded in western Contra Costa County.
"They are really killing each other over nothing,'' Nompraseurt said. "It's foolish.''
Oakland Police homicide Sgt. Jim Rullamas said that while a high percentage of that city's soaring murder rate may involve gang members or their associates, it is not easy to prove that was the motive in court.
"In most of my cases, there are rival groups but the gang affiliation is looser here -- it's not like Crips and Bloods,'' Rullamas said.
Corpuz said that "gang banging is never going to stop -- wars are never going to stop -- but we can save some lives. We can still reach some of these kids before it's too late.''
Santa Clara County prosecutors see Ortega, however, not as a wayward boy but a danger to society who's beyond the salvation of the juvenile justice system.
"The evidence is that Mr. Ortega was the lone gunman who shot and killed two young men and seriously wounded a third,'' Santa Clara County District Attorney George Kennedy said Thursday.
"We looked at all the defendant's background, including his contacts with the juvenile justice system and how amenable he would be to rehabilitation under that system,'' Scott said. "All the information was negative."
At the age of 14, he said, Ortega was "entrenched in the gang lifestyle."
Doobie, none of this shit is funny... The only people losing this war are mexicans as a whole... not the norte or sur BS.
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Christina Marie
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